The End of a Catholic Story of Old New York

On October 8, I read this in Catholic New York:

Sister Mary John Burke, S.R.C.M., who was the last surviving member of the Sisters of Reparation of the Congregation of Mary, died Sept. 14. She was 90. Sister Mary John spent many of her early years serving in the convent at St. Zita’s Home for Friendless Women on 14th Street in Manhattan, where she assisted poor and homeless women. 

Up till about ten years ago, you could make out the faded words: “St Zita’s Convent” above the entrance to a nondescript, dilapidated structure on West 14th Street. The sisters had long abandoned the convent – the building had been sold to the Mormons in 2002. Yet, this had once been the home to one of New York’s rare home-grown religious congregations. Ellen O’Keefe founded St. Zita’s Home for Friendless Women in 1890. Later she founded the Sisters of Reparation of the Congregation of Mary to administer it.

Miss O’Keefe had always treasured the thought of forming a regular community for the perpetuation of her work and to make reparation to Our Savior in the Blessed Sacrament. Archbishop (Cardinal) Farley approved her institute in September 1903, under the title of the “Sisters of Reparation of the Congregation of Mary”. Miss O’Keefe was named superioress of the congregation under the title of Mother Zita, Katherine Dunne (Sister Mary Magdalen) taking the habit on her deathbed.

A sister always sleeps near the door, since it is a rule of the community that no one is to be refused admission at any hour, day or night; the observance of this rule frequently renders it necessary for the sisters to give up their own beds to their humble guests. The women are kept as long as they desire to stay; if able-bodied they must help in the laundry or at sewing, the sole support of the home; if ill, they are cared for or sent to the hospital. Catholic inmates are required to attend Mass on Sundays and holydays of obligation, but this is the sole distinction between the inmates of the different religions. The sisters also visit the poor in the hospitals and supply free meals to men out of employment. The number of women accommodated each night is from 100 to 125; the meals supplied to men out of work averages daily 65. (The Catholic Encyclopedia, Volume XV at 762 (The Encyclopedia Press, Inc., New York 1912)

In other words, these sisters were already doing things undertaken decades later by the Catholic Worker people – without the latter’s flair for publicity and political agitation. By the time the sisters set up shop on West 14th Street in 1903, this corner of Manhattan was fast becoming a dingy, decidedly low-rent part of town.

Yet, as in the case of so many other religious congregations, vocations to the Sisters of Reparation must have dried up in the post-Vatican II world. After selling the 14th Street convent ( “St. Zita’s Home for Friendless Women” had been closed several years earlier), the sisters moved to their last apostolate, appropriately enough, a retirement home for ladies, in Monsey, New York . There, Sister Maureen Francis O’Shea, the last mother superior and director of the adult care facility, died on March 18. She was 85. ( Brum, Robert, Monsey:Future of St. Zita’s Villa appears unertain following director’s death, Rockland Westchester Journal News, lohud, 7/17/2020.See also Pollak, Michael, F.Y.I.: A Place for the Friendless, The New York Times 9/4/2005)

And now, no sisters of this order are left at all. The death of the last sisters calls into question the future of the Monsey facility – today, its real estate value might well be considerable. But let’s reflect on the sisters of this small defunct order and the decades of unselfish work they gave. We are sure that they have their reward!

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